ShawnDoc:Bit of poor engineering on Nintendo's part. There are ways to make a device show a status display to indicate the unit isn't bricked and is continuing the update process.

I am surprised they didn't have the usual "DO NOT UNPLUG OR REMOVE STORAGE DEVICE DURING [XYZ]" like every other computer system/console in the world. But that's been so ingrained into my mind that I don't unplug anything when it's on unless I absolutely have to.

scottydoesntknow:ShawnDoc: Bit of poor engineering on Nintendo's part. There are ways to make a device show a status display to indicate the unit isn't bricked and is continuing the update process.

I am surprised they didn't have the usual "DO NOT UNPLUG OR REMOVE STORAGE DEVICE DURING [XYZ]" like every other computer system/console in the world. But that's been so ingrained into my mind that I don't unplug anything when it's on unless I absolutely have to.

I've always wondered what would happen if I did unplug it while updating. I've just never had the guts to try it.

At first mine worked fine. It continued to work as I filled it with peanut butter but now, I can access most of the digital content but the optical drive doesn't work. It smells oddly of peanut butter and the fan only turns once in a minute or so.Also, it isn't completely enclosed- once warm, the peanut butter drains out the bottom and it takes about 30 minutes to scoop it all up and pour it in again.

To clarify, the peanut butter used in my review is Jif Creamy peanut butter. It takes about 18 oz to fill the unit. As with any electronics, use of crunchy peanut butter isn't recommended.

I specifically called Nintendo of America and asked if it was bad to fill the Wii U with crunchy peanut butter and they said that it was insane to do so- so stick to creamy, folks, if you want to keep that warranty.

I should also add that this sort of reactionary garbage is common amongst reviewers. I remember when Fallout 3 came out the first handful of reviews were something like TOTALLY UNPLAYABLE BUGFEST with such game ruining bugs as "a dead deathclaw moved in a funny way". The game did have a few bugs at launch but the reviewers blew it way out of proportion considering the epic scope of the game and the massive undertaking it is to try to get rid of every possible bug in something like that.

Treygreen13:I should also add that this sort of reactionary garbage is common amongst reviewers. I remember when Fallout 3 came out the first handful of reviews were something like TOTALLY UNPLAYABLE BUGFEST with such game ruining bugs as "a dead deathclaw moved in a funny way". The game did have a few bugs at launch but the reviewers blew it way out of proportion considering the epic scope of the game and the massive undertaking it is to try to get rid of every possible bug in something like that.

I'm with you regarding kneejerk reviewers, but you lost me in your defense of Fallout 3. Bethesda has a long track record of abysmal QA going back to the early 1990s.

SacriliciousBeerSwiller:Slaxl: ShawnDoc: Bit of poor engineering on Nintendo's part. There are ways to make a device show a status display to indicate the unit isn't bricked and is continuing the update process.

I don't think so. We shouldn't make the world idiot proof. We should laugh at idiots when they expose themselves.

Oh please, without an indicator how the f*ck would you know what the system was doing?

Three simple steps for you:

2) Call tech support for an unresponsive device that you deliberately farked during an update.3) Don't lie about how you deliberately farked the device during an update.4) Be told to wait for the update to complete properly without farking with it.

Why'd I skip step one? Because "1) Tattle to the internets that a device you deliberately farked during an update isn't working as expected" isn't part of the solution.

While not the most user friendly, the update recovery probably works quite well and only happens under worst-case scenarios: Highly unlikely power outage or catastrophic user judgment.

SacriliciousBeerSwiller:Treygreen13: I should also add that this sort of reactionary garbage is common amongst reviewers. I remember when Fallout 3 came out the first handful of reviews were something like TOTALLY UNPLAYABLE BUGFEST with such game ruining bugs as "a dead deathclaw moved in a funny way". The game did have a few bugs at launch but the reviewers blew it way out of proportion considering the epic scope of the game and the massive undertaking it is to try to get rid of every possible bug in something like that.

I'm with you regarding kneejerk reviewers, but you lost me in your defense of Fallout 3. Bethesda has a long track record of abysmal QA going back to the early 1990s.

An verily emphatic ^THIS^.

Fallout 3 was an awesome awesome bug-riddled mess. But it WAS bug-riddled, such as the "suicidal NPC's" who would get lost walking their programmed routes and walk off cliffs to their deaths, preventing you from completing missions.

ChaoticLimbs:At first mine worked fine. It continued to work as I filled it with peanut butter but now, I can access most of the digital content but the optical drive doesn't work. It smells oddly of peanut butter and the fan only turns once in a minute or so.Also, it isn't completely enclosed- once warm, the peanut butter drains out the bottom and it takes about 30 minutes to scoop it all up and pour it in again.

5/10

Sir that is the best review Ive ever read. You are a gentleman and a scholar.

and Treygreen Fallout 3 was literally unplayable and remains so for a large number of people. Its not just minor graphical glitches. Its the game constantly crashing because your computer has more than one core in its cpu http://lmgtfy.com/?q=multi+core+fallout+3

Sometimes if everyone is yelling about something you have to wonder if something isnt going on even if it seems stupid.

Here's what happened: some journalist in America went out and bought a Wii U at midnight launch. He got home and saw the console asked him to perform a system update after he connected to WiFi. And so he sat, looking at the screen for a whole 15 minutes before getting bored and yanking the power cable out of the wall.

scottydoesntknow:ShawnDoc: Bit of poor engineering on Nintendo's part. There are ways to make a device show a status display to indicate the unit isn't bricked and is continuing the update process.

I am surprised they didn't have the usual "DO NOT UNPLUG OR REMOVE STORAGE DEVICE DURING [XYZ]" like every other computer system/console in the world. But that's been so ingrained into my mind that I don't unplug anything when it's on unless I absolutely have to.

We don't know that it didn't. Anyone who would yank the plug out to try and cancel an update is the exact type of moron to ignore that warning.

Treygreen13:I should also add that this sort of reactionary garbage is common amongst reviewers. I remember when Fallout 3 came out the first handful of reviews were something like TOTALLY UNPLAYABLE BUGFEST with such game ruining bugs as "a dead deathclaw moved in a funny way". The game did have a few bugs at launch but the reviewers blew it way out of proportion considering the epic scope of the game and the massive undertaking it is to try to get rid of every possible bug in something like that.

gamebryo has a metric buttload of issues

/still want fo4 on gamebryo 1.5 or 'creation' as bethesda is fond of calling it

Unless there was something odd about my system, Fallout 3 had particularly shiatty quality control. It crashed on me quite a lot more than New Vegas did, and by the time I got to Fallout 3 it had been out at least a year so it wasn't just the benefit of a little more time to patch out glitches.

/yanking the plug is dumb but if it actually unrecoverably bricks itself that's still a flaw, even if it's pretty unlikely you lose power at that exact moment

When your customer base is comprised of folks who have bought rehashes of the same Italian plumber game for the past 30 years, it's likely that you can't expect them to have common sense regarding things like firmware updates.

Treygreen13:I should also add that this sort of reactionary garbage is common amongst reviewers. I remember when Fallout 3 came out the first handful of reviews were something like TOTALLY UNPLAYABLE BUGFEST with such game ruining bugs as "a dead deathclaw moved in a funny way". The game did have a few bugs at launch but the reviewers blew it way out of proportion considering the epic scope of the game and the massive undertaking it is to try to get rid of every possible bug in something like that.

It would help if they had bothered to properly test the game, as there were bugs that they had no reasonable excuse to not know about and have fixed, like on the PS3 where any PSN notification would lock up the game until the notification timed out

How exactly is this update being applied? From the sound of it, it is writing the update as it downloads it.. Almost like a copy-paste across a network.. Shouldn't it download a package, confirm package MD5 and then apply it?

Jon iz teh kewl:Here's what happened: some journalist in America went out and bought a Wii U at midnight launch. He got home and saw the console asked him to perform a system update after he connected to WiFi. And so he sat, looking at the screen for a whole 15 minutes before getting bored and yanking the power cable out of the wall.

styckx:How exactly is this update being applied? From the sound of it, it is writing the update as it downloads it.. Almost like a copy-paste across a network.. Shouldn't it download a package, confirm package MD5 and then apply it?

drjekel_mrhyde:I have a friend who believes this type of shiat that bloggers say. She never touched Windows 8 but swear up and down it's bad, because that's what bloggers say.

To many people are like that unfortunatly. It happens with everything unless the previous version was hated for some reason (usually small) the cave men who fear change rant about how bad it is, and the drone labourers believe them because they do not have the ability to think for them selves.

No worse then when D&D 4E came out and the "reviews" were nothing but hate filled rants by people who have not even bothered to read the rules and understand the product. and more and more lies by one idiot after another kept getting added together to the point that no one who had not actually tried it, or tracked down information from actual reviews knew anything about it, and did not understand any of the games strengths, and improvements.

What a retarded article. How many more times can the guy use the phrase 'Big Shot Journalist'?

There is an issue with the WiiU bricking. People have reported it locking up during games or downloading the update, with no way of reseting the system aside from unplugging it. Some of those people have unplugged it since it was the only way to turn it off, and then have had their system fail to power on again.

Whoever wrote this blog post sounds angry that someone is negatively talking about the WiiU and went nuts over a tweet.

ChaoticLimbs:To clarify, the peanut butter used in my review is Jif Creamy peanut butter. It takes about 18 oz to fill the unit. As with any electronics, use of crunchy peanut butter isn't recommended.

I specifically called Nintendo of America and asked if it was bad to fill the Wii U with crunchy peanut butter and they said that it was insane to do so- so stick to creamy, folks, if you want to keep that warranty.

HindiDiscoMonster:Slaxl: ShawnDoc: Bit of poor engineering on Nintendo's part. There are ways to make a device show a status display to indicate the unit isn't bricked and is continuing the update process.

I don't think so. We shouldn't make the world idiot proof. We should laugh at idiots when they expose themselves.

seriously... it's not like we ever have to deal with power outages or anything... amirite?

Obviously subby hasn't realized this is a somewhat larger issue than "some blogger no one has ever heard of" bricking his console.

Nintendo is not just replacing his, but anyone's console that gets bricked during the initial update. If you have an update that is forced right out of the box that has any chance whatsoever of rendering the hardware completely inoperative you have to accept some responsibility. It's not like this is optional and it's not like this is in any way, shape or form a fault-tolerant operation.

Boo at Nintendo for forcing the update in the first place, cheers to Nintendo for realizing that this is partially a problem of their own making.

sjmcc13:drjekel_mrhyde: I have a friend who believes this type of shiat that bloggers say. She never touched Windows 8 but swear up and down it's bad, because that's what bloggers say.To many people are like that unfortunatly. It happens with everything unless the previous version was hated for some reason (usually small) the cave men who fear change rant about how bad it is, and the drone labourers believe them because they do not have the ability to think for them selves.

No worse then when D&D 4E came out and the "reviews" were nothing but hate filled rants by people who have not even bothered to read the rules and understand the product. and more and more lies by one idiot after another kept getting added together to the point that no one who had not actually tried it, or tracked down information from actual reviews knew anything about it, and did not understand any of the games strengths, and improvements.

I played AD&D since 1st edition... Each edition had it's strengths and weaknesses... The problem I find with 4th edition is that it tries to be too realistic... It is after all supposed to be fantasy... an escape, not a rulemonger's wet dream. I think my favorite edition (yes, I know I will get hate for this) is 2nd Edition. I do however like the addition of skills and Psionics being fixed.

kab:When your customer base is comprised of folks who have bought rehashes of the same Italian plumber game for the past 30 years, it's likely that you can't expect them to have common sense regarding things like firmware updates.

The same ones who thought the Wii-U was anything but a rehashed Wii with a over priced LCD controller instead of a magic wand..

More power to Nintendo for selling re-purposed trash to people though..

TheOriginalEd:and Treygreen Fallout 3 was literally unplayable and remains so for a large number of people. Its not just minor graphical glitches. Its the game constantly crashing because your computer has more than one core in its cpu http://lmgtfy.com/?q=multi+core+fallout+3

Sometimes if everyone is yelling about something you have to wonder if something isnt going on even if it seems stupid.

I was referring to the Xbox 360 version, since this is (or at least was) a discussion about console gaming.

However, I remember that particular issue. Of course, I was able to resolve it with the first result on google search, and the community at Fallout Nexus put together a fix for that and a few other minor problems without having to wait for Bethesda to do a full patch. That's part of the reason I prefer PC on pretty much any game other than sports games - if there's an issue with the compatibility of my hardware or I just want to add something new to my game, I can.

Now, it certainly was a problem. But a good reviewer would say "there is currently an issue with multi-core processors and a fix is available" instead of "THIS IS UNPLAYABLE".

The stories of NPCs falling to their death is pretty hilarious. It was still a great game, though.

styckx:styckx: How exactly is this update being applied? From the sound of it, it is writing the update as it downloads it.. Almost like a copy-paste across a network.. Shouldn't it download a package, confirm package MD5 and then apply it?

Nevermind I finished reading the article now

Just as a technical side note, they probably do they download, validate and apply. Firmware is fairly easy to brick, though, since the actual update follows a format of erasing the entire firmware, or at least several blocks of it's memory and rewriting it and then validating. Having the firmware lose power during the erase or the write tends to work out rather poorly.

A Shambling Mound:Obviously subby hasn't realized this is a somewhat larger issue than "some blogger no one has ever heard of" bricking his console.

Nintendo is not just replacing his, but anyone's console that gets bricked during the initial update. If you have an update that is forced right out of the box that has any chance whatsoever of rendering the hardware completely inoperative you have to accept some responsibility. It's not like this is optional and it's not like this is in any way, shape or form a fault-tolerant operation.

Boo at Nintendo for forcing the update in the first place, cheers to Nintendo for realizing that this is partially a problem of their own making.

Nintendo has always had Stellar Customer Service... for years on end, since the 80s at least.